Rambles in Womanland

The former is good-hearted and fairly sensitive. He hates nobody, because hatred disturbs sleep and rest. He avoids emotions for his own comfort; he is learnedly selfish.

If you are unhappy, in distressed circumstances, don't bother him about it. He is sorry, he cannot help it, and he would rather not hear of it.

If you are ill, do not expect a visit from him; the sight of pain or grief affects him. If you are in want, he may send you a £5 note, but he does not want to see you. He seeks the company of cheerful and happy people only.

He has an income of £6,000 a year, and will tell you that nobody dies of starvation except in novels.

He turns his head from wretches shivering with cold in the street, and is of opinion that a good Government should suppress paupers and all sorts of people who disturb the peace and happiness of the rich. His friends call him 'a good fellow.'

The other type is execrable. The miseries of other people increase his happiness. When he sees a starving-looking man or a sick one, he returns thanks that he is rich and healthy.

He does not avoid the unfortunate: he almost seeks them. The more horrible tales you tell him of poverty, sorrows, disease, wretchedness, the happier he is to feel that he runs no danger of ever encountering such calamities.

Well wrapped up in furs in a good carriage, the sight of a beggar, benumbed with cold, sitting on the stone steps of an empty house, doubles his comfort. He finds his carriage better suspended, and his furs warmer.

He almost believes that the abject poor were invented to make him appreciate his good fortune better. He is not unlike those fanatics of a certain school who believe that the greatest bliss reserved for the elect in heaven is to see their less fortunate brethren burn in hell. As I have said, this type of selfish man is execrable.

CHAPTER XVII

EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES

THE RIGHT AND WRONG IN THE CASE OF A ROYAL PRINCESS

Since the escapade of the Royal Princess of Saxony with the French tutor Giron, many have asked me, 'Do you approve or forgive her? Do you not think that a woman who can no longer endure life with a sullen and unsympathetic husband has a right to break away from the social conventionalities of life and go her own way in search of happiness?'

The question is not easy to answer. There may be, or there may not be, extenuating circumstances in the conduct of a woman who deserts her husband, or a man who leaves his wife.

First of all, let me say that I place the consideration of duty far higher than that of personal happiness. Therefore, a man or a woman who abandons a home where there are children of a tender age, children who require the protection of a father and the affection of a mother, which no one can replace, is a coward that should be placed under the ban of society.

I don't care how much a woman may fall in love with a man, or a man with a woman, the duty of either is to remain by the side of their children, to watch over their education, and to see them launched in life. If they shirk this duty, there is no excuse, no atonement for their conduct, which closely borders on crime.

When there are no children, I admit that there may be circumstances in which I would forgive a man or a woman who leaves a home in which life has become unendurable, in order to seek happiness in the company of a partner who has given proof of love, devotion, and disinterestedness. I might also be prepared to forgive if the children were grown up and able to support themselves.

On no account, however, could I approve, or even forgive, a man who leaves a wife with whom life may have become as intolerable as you like without duly providing for her comfort, even if by so doing he should have nothing left for himself, and be obliged to start life afresh.

I do not admit that anyone, man or woman, has a right to shirk responsibilities imposed by solemn promises. Let them set this right first of all. After that, let them solve the problem of happiness as best they can.

No doubt there are drawbacks in holding royal honours, but I believe in the old motto, Noblesse oblige; and if noblesse does, surely royalty should. Royalty nowadays is not of much use, except when it gives to the people over which it rules the example of all virtues, of all domestic virtues especially.

When people are born in the purple, they are born with responsibilities. If they fling them to the four winds of the earth, there is no use for royalty: the reason for its existence has ceased to exist.

CHAPTER XVIII

AMERICAN WOMEN IN PARIS

Every year in Paris, in springtime, we see the American women reappear with the regularity of the swallow. We expect them, we watch for their arrival, and we are delighted when we hear them say, with their singing voices, that they have come for our season, which begins in April and goes on till 'The Grand Prix' is run during the second week of June.

The American woman is not only received, but eagerly sought in our most aristocratic society. Her amiability and brilliancy have forced open the doors of our most exclusive mansions. She affords so much pleasure that she is indispensable. We are dull without her, because she is not only beautiful and a feast for the eyes, but she is bright, brilliant, witty, unconventional, and a feast for the mind. It is thanks to all these qualities, far more than to her dollars, that the American woman is to-day part and parcel of what is called 'Tout Paris.' And, indeed, there is no woman in the world so attractive as the fair daughter of Uncle Sam. Her physical, moral, and intellectual charms make her the most interesting woman one may wish to meet.

The English woman is very often beautiful. Her freshness is exquisite, her figure excellent when she knows how to enhance its beauty by well-made garments. She is, perhaps, beyond competition when she is really beautiful, but her beauty is too often statuesque, and lacks lustre and piquancy. The French woman is supple and graceful, but she is more fascinating by her manner, by her chic, than by the beauty of her complexion, the regularity of her features, and the proportions of her figure. The German is often fine, but generally heavy, compact, and lacking elegance.

The American woman is an altogether. She has the piquancy, the fascinating manner, the elegance, the grace, and the gait of the Parisienne; but, besides, she often possesses the eyes of a Spaniard, the proud figure of a Roman, and the delicate features of an English woman. If, during the Paris season, you walk in the Champs-Elysées district, where all the best Americans are settled, you will admire those women looking radiant with intelligence, cheerful, independent, who, you can see, have the consciousness of their value.

The education which she has received has developed all her faculties. The liberty she always enjoyed, the constant attentions she has received from father, brother, husband, and all her male friends, have made her feel safe everywhere, and she goes about freely, with a firm step that stamps her American. Thanks to her finesse, her power of observation, her native adaptability, she can fit herself for every station of life. If one day she finds herself mistress of the White House or Vice-Queen of India, she immediately feels at home. She may be ever so learned, she is never a pedant. She is, and remains, a woman in whose company a man feels at once at his ease; a sort of fascinating good fellow, with all the best attributes of womanhood; a little of a coquette, with a suspicion of a touch of blue-stocking – but so little. She loves dresses, and none puts them on better than she does. English women, even the most elegant ones at home, seldom favour us, when they visit us, but with all the worst frumps and frippery they can find in their wardrobe. The American women are considerate enough to try and do their best for us, and we appreciate the compliment. And thus they brighten our theatres, our promenades, our balls and dinner-parties, our fashionable restaurants, and Paris, which loves them, could not now do without them.

CHAPTER XIX

WOMEN WHO WALK BEST

A few weeks ago I was watching the church parade in Hyde Park, London, between the statue of Achilles and Stanhope Gate, when I met an American lady of my acquaintance. We walked together for awhile, and then sat down in order to watch the fashionable crowd more closely.

It is said that, although Americans and Englishmen think a great deal of one another nowadays, you seldom hear American women praise the women of England, and more seldom still hear English women say a good word of American women.

So I was tickled to know what my American lady friend thought of the crowd that was performing before us, and I asked her to give me her impressions.

'Well,' she said, 'it is as good as, if not better than, anything that New York could produce. Possibly on some special occasion Fifth Avenue might turn out a few lovelier dresses, but the London average is above the New York average. You see fewer absolute failures here among the women, while the men are quite unapproachable – surely Londoners are the best-dressed men in the world.'

'And the New Yorkers the most brand-newly dressed men,' I interrupted. 'But you are right. I like to think that a coat has been worn just more than once. But please go on.'

'The days when the London girl was really badly dressed are dead and gone. We have educated her, we Americans, until she has all but reached our standard. Just think what the London shops were fifteen and even ten years ago! Something awful! But now I can buy in them everything I want just as easily as though I were in Paris or New York.

'I don't know whether the supply of pretty dresses and dainty et ceteras made the demand, or whether it was the other way about, but, at any rate, there has been a change within the last decade that is almost a revolution. The London woman of to-day dresses quite as well as her sister across the Channel or the Atlantic.'

I was getting sadly disappointed, for my lady friend is a critic and a wit, and I was expecting a few amusing remarks on English women. So I ventured:

'So you think that now English women can obtain in London dresses just as pretty as women can in Paris and New York?

'Certainly,' she replied. 'Yet they never look so well, because, you see, when they get these pretty dresses, these poor English women don't know how to put them on. The English girl's education is not yet completed. She has not learned how to carry herself as we have in America, both at home and at school. You know the splendid air and prima donna effects that American women can bring off when they choose. These young English women have hardly a suspicion of them.

'In taste for the delicate things of dress the Londoner is now just about where she should be; but she has not yet learned how to wear a dress. A French woman or an American would make fifty per cent, more of it than the English woman knows how to do; and if this is to be remedied, English girls will first have to be taught how to walk and how to hold themselves.'

And no doubt my American friend had hit on the national defect of English women – their bad way of walking and holding themselves.

One's thoughts naturally fly to Spain, where every member of the feminine sex, from the little girl of four to the old woman, who in England would be bent and tottering, knows how to carry herself as if she were a queen.

If it is true that this result is achieved by the Spanish custom of carrying everything on the head instead of on the back or in the hand, it is a pity the English do not make their girls begin at once to carry their school-satchels in a way that will make them hold their heads up instead of down, and accentuate gracefully their lines both behind and in front.

When I was in South Africa I invariably admired the manner in which the Kaffir and Zulu women walked and held themselves. On watching them I often exclaimed: 'If English women could only walk and carry themselves as these women do, with their pretty faces and figures, with their beautiful skin and complexion, they would have few rivals in the world.'

It is by walking barefooted and carrying everything on their heads that the women of Kaffirland and Zululand learn to walk so well, to hold their heads up, to bring their chests forward, to throw back their shoulders, and give to their gait that gentle swing which is so dainty and graceful.

American women obtain the same result by being drilled at school, for it is incontestable, and, I believe, incontested, that they are the best walking women, and also those who, with the Parisiennes, know best how to put on their dresses.

CHAPTER XX

WOMEN LIVE LONGER THAN MEN

Heller, who has collected the greatest number of instances of extreme long life, found 1,000 persons who lived from 100 to 110, 60 from 110 to 120, 30 from 120 to 130, 15 from 130 to 140, 6 from 140 to 150, and one who lived to be 169 years of age.